Its unions say Southwest has been too investor-focused and underinvested in the operation for years. What is your response to that criticism?
I’ve been asked a lot if we have outdated technology. We spend a billion dollars a year on technology here at Southwest. And, like all businesses, there are always new things, like our maintenance system, and there are always things you’re working on.
We have a very good operations improvement plan. Crew scheduling is a big part of that. If you just look back in the last year, we put out, I think, eight new versions of SkySolver. We have hired 120 staff programmers. We put leadership over crew scheduling and realigned. I’m not saying for a minute that we’re done or that’s enough.
As for the question of shareholders, it is not a singular decision. We are financially very healthy. And because of that, we don’t have to choose between investing in technology or investing in our shareholders. During the holidays, we switched to bonus payments, we offered gratitude pay, we made goodwill gestures for our employees, as well as for our clients.
How do you regain the trust of your customers?
We have a 51 year history of operating a really good airline and providing excellent service. That didn’t change just because we had this event.
That does not rule out the fact that we were wrong. I think the best thing we can do is use this event as a catalyst to be even better. This is a great company, but the best thing we can do for our customers is to continue to provide a great product, to invest in our product. You’ve seen us do all of those things: we’re adding larger feeder ports and containers. Keep investing in them, keep running a great operation, keep providing great hospitality and be even better.
Can you help us understand when you knew things were really bad at Christmas?
We plan days and days in advance for storms, hurricanes, all that stuff. We see the operation every day; our leaders are on many calls a day just to understand how we are doing. I’m on several calls a day, on a normal day. Everything that was happening.
